How long did your quickest brewday take?

I clear out a whole day to brew. It usually takes me about 8 hours or longer. Because I'm using a stove top for heating all the water and wort, I don't even try to make good time.

 

Quickest was before I did full kettle boils. It was very satisfying boiling for 1/2 hour and dumping the extract mixture onto ice to achieve instant pitching temperature. And a lot less stuff to clean up before I started all-grain.

Still, I am happy investing the time and energy into my current process, and since I brewed yesterday and had a full 90 minute boil, the 5 hours I spent was pretty quick for me.

 

I don't know what a quick brew day is. Mine never take less than 4 hours, but frequently take longer.

 

Six hours is about my quickest. We had an 8 hour brew day yesterday, with the quickest start to fermentation that I've ever seen. In a little less than 5 hours , one of our brews had a full head of foam with a blow off tube full also.

 

I budget six hours for all grain, and am usually done in just under. I'm not in a hurry and I see no point in introducing stress to a hobby (a hobby is, by design, an escape from stress).
In my extract days, three hours was about normal.

FWIW, this is from start to finish - from the time I open the shed door to remove the equipment until the final piece of cleaned equipment is put away, save for the occasional spoon or other utensil in the dishwasher. Style has already been decided and sufficient ingredients are on hand before I start the clock. Malt bill is worked out while the mash water is heating, hop schedule during the mash (though there's a lot of creative overlap between the two).

 

Brew day has a lot of natural breaks that I find very relaxing. Rushing it just seems wrong.

 

Sounds about right. Never rush it on brewday, otherwise it's not fun.

I like to do the hops on the fly sometimes too. I sometimes bring the scale and a few sandwich bags to the freezer, along with beersmith on my laptop, and just formulate as I weigh.

Once I even did the "no scale, no clock" hops plan. Well, to be a little more clear, I knew I had around 4-5 oz of fuggles leaf left, and that I wanted to put all of them into a particular beer, so I just scooped them out by the handful "around" the times I figured I'd need them. The beer came out great, and really not even all that hoppy or bitter (fuggles are pretty weak hops). I would never try this with pellet hops or with really strong hops, BTW.

 

Does making cider count? That took like five minutes.
For beer, extract with steeping grains would take a few hours including chilling, all grain is more like 5. Heating strike water, mashing, boiling, cooling.... Then add cleanup on top of that. I do generally do most setup as the strike water is heating, and clean up progressively as I go along, but there's still a lot to do afterwards.

 

I can wax poetic about the leisurely enjoyment of my homebrew hobby over the course of a long brew day, but I am also envious of Nicefly's timing.

 

Hmm...for 5 gallons, probably 4 hours or so.
Although we did a Berliner Weisse that we just mashed in, let sour mash overnight, so just had to sparge and boil about 15 minutes. The "brew day" took all of about an hour for 5 gallons. But I guess that's cheating.

For 10 gallons, we usually take about 6 hours I think; never really timed it, come to think of it.

I've done a couple experimental 1 gallon batches on the stove, and that takes about 2 1/2 hours. Recently I've decided that doing 1 gallon batches is a bigger pain in the ass than 10 gallon batches.

 

I pretty consistently take about 5 hours start to finish, unless I'm doing something unusual. Never gone below 4 hours, as far as I remember.

 

2:45 for a BIAB Mild with a 45 minute mash and 60 minute boil. My brew days are usually about 8 hours for two all grain batches of 5-20 gallons per a batch, unless I BIAB one, then its down to about 6-7.

All time record for productivity was 4 separate batches (2x 10 gallon all grain, 2x 5 gallon extract) in 8 hours, however my wife did brew one of the 5 gallon extract batches, a Pacific Jade and Sorachi SMaDH IPA, completely on her own (Like a Boss).

 

My fastest brew day was a bud lite clone that took about 90 seconds. A very sessionable beer, although I had to work in a small batch so that it would fit in the microwave.

 

Just under 5 hours for 10 gallons of ordinary bitter.

I don't take many shortcuts now. I do things for the quality of the beer. If it takes longer, so be it.

 

I would say ~4 hours is the shortest day I've experienced. 3 Gallons of wheat, short mash and boil. With prep the night before I could probably shorten that.

 

I can usually do 4 - 4.5 hours in the winter time because the tap water is so much cooler that I can chill my wort in about 30 mins. or a bit less.
I'm not sure how long it will be this winter, but I have probably shaved about another 30 mins off because I have rebuilt my burner. It looks like the Hindenburg when its lit. FYI, arm hair stinks when it burns.

 

If I'm in a hurry I do a 30 or 40 min mash and a single batch sparge. I haven't tried to shorten a boil and don't know enough about grains to do so. I check for conversion after a short mash and go straight to boil. I think my record is sub 4 and wouldn't want it to take much less time.